a theory on how to get some answers.

Hello all. Since my mother passed in November '08, I've found myself becoming more and more interested in what could possibly be after this current life. I was raised with the common belief that Jesus was the son of god, etc. I even did a little time in a catholic school.
Entering into my teen years though, I discovered atheism, and never really looked back. Granted, I obtained some more "earth" based beliefs, and still agreed that the teachings of biblical beings were still good lessons that I still to this day believe should be shared by us.
With my mother passing away, I've nearly become obsessed with finding an answer to what may be out there (over there?). My atheist side believes that when we die, it's no different than the moment that we fall asleep, or like turning a light switch off. That side of me though came under stress, and suddenly one night I had my first panic attack because of this thought.
Since then I've pushed myself to learn more about the spirit. I've absorbed as much information as I can about NDEs, OBEs, and what I believe to be the most important piece of information: '___'.
To get to my point though, I want to focus on the NDE experience of Pam Reynolds. The doctors say that she was purposefully made brain dead for a surgery, and that there was zero brain activity. Is it just an inability for us to detect the brain functions, are they really not there, or what?!?

So, here is the solution to answering this question (IMO):

Scientist have successfully removed a rat's brain and connected it to a computer, which then in turn allowed the rat brain to control a remote control "body" (a car in this example). Using this knowledge, IF the brain is actually still active when an NDE occurs, then it's only a matter of the brain no longer being able to control the body, not the brain being dead.
What I am wondering is this: If we were to immediately remove the brain from a human once they have passed, and can connect it to a computer in a similar fashion that they did the rats, would we be able to communicate with the deceased person, and if so, how long would we be able to sustain them in such a state.

I'm not a scientist, or a doctor, heck, i didn't even graduate high school, so there is no chance that I will ever be able to do this stuff. I just want to share the idea with fellow atsers and see what they think, and hopefully, if i dont sound like a nutcase, maybe the RIGHT person will read this, be inspired, and carry out the experiment and get the answers.

So what do you all think? Am I wrong that this would be a possible solution to our deli ma?

Sources:

Pam reynolds on youtube: width="425" height="344"> "http://www.youtube.com/v/WNbdUEqDB-k&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344">

Rat brains connected to external bodies: width="425" height="344"> "http://www.youtube.com/v/RcQ7ACgihAg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344">


edit: I don't know how to post vids apparently.

[edit on 6/3/2009 by kyanther]

We actually don't have the technology yet to connect brains to computers. What the media reported as "Rat Brain Controlled Robots" or "Robot with a rat's brain" is actually an artificial heap of rat brain neurons, grown from rat brain stemcells. The scientists have not arranged the neurons to communicate with software, but instead just connected several inputs and outputs to it and let the neurons grow itself - pretty much like a biological artificial circuit.

If we want to connect a real brain to any machine, we can't have some in- and outputs - we need to scan the inner workings of the brain, where the real action happens. This is usually done with ECG (electroencephalogram) caps which record the electromagnetic fluctuations on the scalp (which is then extrapolated to the inner activities), or fMRI scans which show electromagnetic activity within the brain (but not in an unlimited resolution of time or imagery). The ECGs are good for simple work - a lot of neuropsychological studies are done with ECGs and there are even companies working on an EEG device as a replacement of joysticks/controllers (yes: thinking your way through a game). fMRI devices are much larger and more expensive to run, but obviously has a lot more detailed information to offer.

So far there is no device with a physical connection to read the brain, but it seems we don't really need it - we could use one of those techniques, or combine them even. I think it has been done before as well, but can't seem to find an article.. The problem is that every brain works a bit different, so you can't make a generic 'brainreader' device - and our current knowledge is not good enough to make estimates from the common processes we can locate. In other words: brain scans give us a good look at which brain parts are active, and especially when looking at the brain as a whole over a period of time this can give us a load of information about interaction between brain parts. But we can't look inside the brain part and see what exactly is being processed. We can see someone is trying to remember a word and has it very close in memory but just can't reach it (tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon) - but we can't read which word it is yet.
In a way you could say we can connect a brain to a machine - if we would run some software on the output of the fMRI/EEG devices, like with bio-feedback and those brain-controlled games to come, there could be some very interesting results. I think the biggest problem is that in order to read something like "I'm in a tunnel of light", we would need to have the software that recognises this specific individual's brain patterns as saying "I'm in a tunnel of light" - but the only probable way of telling your software how to recognise those patterns, you need to have the patterns. So you would need to have scanned that individual before right at the moment of a tunnel of light. That's a problem - how big is the chance that you do an fMRI scan on someone twice while he experiences a tunnel of light?
However, those fMRI devices keep getting higher resolutions, biologists and psychologists (.. and psychobiologists, yeah yeah) are gaining more and more insight of how our brains work. If we can get enough brain scan outputs of dying people, we might be able to distinguish different experiences.. Not sure about the ethical implications though ;]

Lol, I guess I was kinda pulling the buggy before the horse with my idea then . I'll admit I didn't realize the difference in brain/ neurotransmitter hook ups, so thank you for pointing that out. Hopefully ats is still around when the technology does finally catch up.

Then we can take our brains and put them in micro-spaceships and see whats really out there! Oh...there's that buggy again...